shades of nuance: the heart of The Idealect

We’re often threatened by entertaining thoughts contrary to our own worldview. But entertaining an idea is not the same as adoption of an idea. In fact, entertaining those worldview-shaking ideas is our best hope of creating a better world.

We often spend our time living defensively. We’re on the lookout for ideas to oppose. We defend ourselves against what we perceive others to be thinking of us, regardless of whether those perceptions are real or not. We protest, stand up against injustice. These are all necessary and perhaps even noble thoughts but at times we allow them to rob us of our ability to explore nuance and frightening thoughts.

We label people as “good” or “bad,” always thinking of ourselves as good. No one perceives themselves as being evil. Everyone, according to their own thought process, is propelled to act by good motives.

It’s this blindness, this inability or unwillingness to look at ourselves in shades of nuance, that creates the divisions of society. We’re too busy pointing the finger of blame at someone else.

---Is there any situation I could find myself in where, from a removed perspective, I could be perceived as evil?---

Until we recognize that the problems in the world don’t come from evil people, but rather from people much like ourselves, we have little hope of progressing.

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

— Mary Wollstonecraft

So may this project be a nuanced exploration of the human spirit and the world it inhabits.